The Pakistani Army says the Pakistani Taliban killed 16 people inside a mosque during an assault on a military base near the northwestern city of Peshawar.
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The airbase – established in the 1960s – was not functional and it was mostly being used as a residential place for the employees and officers of the air force, reports said.
According to DG ISPR Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa, the terrorists split in two groups as they entered the camp at two points.
As firefights with the other militants continued elsewhere, an army captain and three air force technicians were also killed.
In a media release, Mohamad Khurasani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, revealed that soon they will avail all the information regarding the attackers.
Security forces killed three militants, Bajwa informed on Twitter.
It is surrounded by tribal territory, which has been the hub of criminal and militant activity until recently.
Ambulances took around 20 wounded military personnel to hospital, Bilal Ahmed, a rescue official, told Reuters news agency.
A doctor at a hospital said they have received one more unidentified body.
“Terrorists attk guard room early morning”. The attack was claimed by the TTP, and decisively ended the pretence of dialogue between the government and the militant group.
The video suggested that the attackers were supplied by a TTP group from Darra Adam Khel, part of the restive tribal areas near Peshawar, named after a deceased militant commander known as “the jackal”. At least 13 terrorists have been killed during exchange of fire.
But since then there has been something of a lull in violence.
According to police statistics, Peshawar and the rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province experienced 50 terrorist attacks during the first eight months of this year, compared to 158 during the same period in 2014.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has condemned the attack.
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Friday’s attack came a day after Pakistan reported the arrest a militant figure behind a recent failed attempt to target an air force facility in Kamra, also in the northwest of the country. The raids on North Waziristan were ordered reportedly at the insistence of the Pakistani army, with Gen. Raheel Sharif of the position that the peace talks were meaningless.
